Special Reports

Twelfth WAMY conference in Marrakesh

The Milli Gazette

Published Online: Mar 03, 2015

Print Issue: 16-28 February 2015

MG Correspondent

Marrakesh City (Morocco): World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) held its 12th international conference here during 29-31 January. The huge event was attended by around 700 guests from 85 countries around the world, including officials from Morocco and some other countries and a sizeable representation of Muslim, especially youth and student, organisations from the four continents.

Inaugural function of the WAMY conference

The theme of the conference was “Youth in a Changing World”. WAMY general secretary Dr. Saleh ibn Sulaiman Al-Wohaibi said while inaugurating the conference on 29 January that this event is being held amid tremendous changes taking place all over the world and under an unprecedented communications onslaught through media and social networking channels, which is influencing the thoughts and behaviour of our youth. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the new changes and to guide our youth who constitute 50 percent of the Muslim Ummah today. Extremism and atheistic tendencies should be tackled seriously, he said.

The session on youth experiences (Zafarul-Islam Khan is seen on extreme right)

The Conference consisted of two public lectures and a number of sessions during which youth problems, experiences and experiments form around the world were discussed. The general council of WAMY also met during the Conference and elected the new members of its board of trustees for the new 4-year term.

The two open lectures were delivered by two well-known speakers and preachers of repute. The first was by Dr Muhammad ibn Al-Hasan Al-Dadu of Mauritania who spoke about the concept of change in Islam. He said that change is a divine law. Each human being should strive to change him/herself to reach what is better and more virtuous in terms of knowledge, behaviour and faith, etc. A Muslim also has to strive to change his/her society for the better. He said, positive change has some conditions: 1. It should not oppose divine laws. 2. Change has to take place by using easier and peaceful ways and not through coercion and violence. 3. The situation after change must be better than what was earlier. But if change leads to the worse, it is not desirable. 4. Change should not be costly. A long and costly change is against divine laws. 5. Change should increase productivity and be suitable to the age in which it is taking place. 6. Change should unify people instead of dividing them. 7. Change should be pleasing to Allah as without divine facilitation no change succeeds.

The second open lecture was delivered by the famous Sudanese scholar Dr. Isam Al-Bashir. He stressed that three things are required to guide youth: knowledge, good upbringing and a good understanding of the current situation in their societies and the world. He said, we find three kinds of attitudes in our societies today: one is dazzled by West and blindly follows it, the second is seclusionist which shuns the world and believes that following early generations is enough to succeed in life. A third attitude is to balance between the above two attitudes and chose what is useful and good.

A special session discussed the role of change in the lives of youth. Scholars said that Ulama should be careful and lenient while dealing with youth. Speakers from various countries offered an overview of the situation in their countries, especially in relation to youth organisations there. Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan, from India, spoke on a number of youth experiments around the world. He stressed that youth organisations should function under the observation and guidance of experienced elders. He offered the example of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) as an example of a youth organisation which went astray and started raising extremist slogans which allowed the Indian government to ban it in 2001. This not only paralysed this organisation and stopped its activities but also harmed the Indian Muslim community in general.

Youth and women took part in the conference with enthusiams and had an active participation, especially in discussions, comments and question and answer sessions.

The Conference was held in the historic and beautiful capital of Morocco which was earlier the seat of great Islamic States like Murabitun and Muwahhidun which had intervened in Andalus at crucial times.

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